I wanted to be able to write a great article on the power of WebForms. Of how they are just easier to use and more stable than MVC or RAZOR.  

I'm not going to lie, I love WebForms, and I've made WebForms dance to my tune for 15 years now. The typical complaints regarding lack of control of the rendered HTML or CSS, I've ignored and basically forced it to perform how I wanted. I understand WebForms. They work like WinForms in a context that to me makes sense. 

So, yes, I wanted to be able to write a great article on why we need them, why we should keep them, and other such things. 

And instead, while doing my research, and hunting for various numbers, I ran across a reference to SharePoint.

The reference in question was discussing a comparison between SharePoint, WebForms and the then just released MVC Framework, and held specific notations how WebForms had more structure than MVC but had none of the "out-of-the-box" functionality of SharePoint. The stance of the author (which I'm still not sure I agree with) was that WebForms had the drawbacks of both, with none of their features.  Like I said, I can't quite agree to that, but the article was enough to get me thinking. 

I mean, I remember SharePoint when it was first released. When it could be used to build websites. Or Intranets. Or whatever someone twisted it to do. 

The thing is, is that it has been years since I last saw a SharePoint install. None of my clients use it, the Network Architects for my company don't spec it, and it's not something I ever think about considering as an option for  my clients. SharePoint is a powerful tool, it integrates with basically every aspect of Office and Windows to produce a data integration tool for Enterprise. I'm not arguing that.  I'm stating that I haven't seen it in years, don't ever think about it, and have a general negative impression of it due to the complexity it invoked when I did last attempt to do something with it years ago. 

Just like MVC. 

When MVC first released, I poked at it a bit, then went back to work building things with WebForms. I didn't like it. It didn't behave the way I wanted to interact with an ASP.Net site. It was C#. And it had so may files to create any given page.  

I never really gave it a fair shot, because in the end building WebForms with VB.Net was faster. I was able to generate an application from design to production at speed and with ease. Which is typically a highly important aspect to things. After all, the three staples of software development are always cost, time and quality. Using WebForms, I was able to impact all three aspects positively and do so consistently.  

Which is the big case for WebForms. If you know what you're doing, working with them is fast; getting an application up and running is trivial. In my opinion, even getting the CSS to behave as expected is easy. 

And that's something meaningful.  Especially as a consultant, building software to solve other people's problems on their dime.